Concern Blogs

By Anne W. Mwangi, Commmunications Officer, Concern Worldwide Kenya

Last year was a tough one for Kenyans. Drought racked the land and food prices rocketed, pushing three decent meals a day out of the reach of most Kenyans. Now that 2012 is here, everyone is wondering what this year will bring. According to economic experts, food prices may ease slightly, but will likely remain high and hunger will continue for the poorest.

But far removed from economic experts and predictions are the residents of Nairobi’s vast slums who are struggling to put food on the table for their families. I visited one of Concern Worldwide’s local partners, Redeemed Gospel Church (RGC), in Korogocho slum in Nairobi. We have been working with RGC since 2009 to provide assistance to almost 1,500 families with emergency cash transfers, small business loans, and training to set up businesses.

A child walks down a street past typical corrugated-iron house-fronts in the Korogocho slum of Nairobi. Photo: Phil Moore, 2011.

Grace, a social worker Concern partners with through RGC, explained how hard life has been for Nairobi’s slum residents. “Most of our beneficiaries are engaged in day-to-day odd jobs like washing people’s clothes,” she said. “They earn between 70shs to 150shs a day (approximately $1.30/day). These people are living on the edge.” Indeed, the volatile spikes in food prices in 2011 drove many of these families over the edge and into desperation. Food shortages in slum markets combined with increases in food costs meant that the most vulnerable slum families required such as emergency interventions such as cash transfers to meet their daily survival needs. Read the rest of this entry »

By Mustafa Kamal, Overseas Account Manager, Concern Worldwide

Bangladesh recently celebrated two significant 40^th anniversaries. As a Bangladeshi and a member of Concern Worldwide for the past 20 years, the events have a dual-significance.  In addition to marking the independence of my country, it also was the anniversary of Concern’s first mission to support vulnerable and under-served Bangladeshi refugees in Calcutta, India following the liberation war. The response in Calcutta was Concern’s second mission as an organization and led to what is now four decades of high-impact quality programming inside Bangladesh.

This month, Concern is recognizing its 40^th year in Bangladesh with events in Dhaka and our headquarters in Dublin. While much work remains to be done in Bangladesh, what we have accomplished since that first mission to support Bangladeshi refugees in 1971 is remarkable. In many ways, our work in Bangladesh has shaped Concern’s programming and how we bridge emergency response and development, and I am honored and very proud to have been a part of it, both on-the-ground in Dhaka and now in Dublin, Ireland.

My first interaction with Concern was in 1989.  I was a chartered accountant student in Dhaka and had the opportunity to be a part of consultancy project to review Concern’s financial systems. As part of this assignment, I traveled to Saidpur to review the financial systems of Concern’s programs. Read the rest of this entry »

By Emily Bradley, Program Support Officer (PSO)

Bakhtwar sits proudly in front of her small shop which she reopened with the support of Concern after the floods washed it away. Jamshoro District, Sindh. Photo: Emily Bradley

Driving through Southern Sindh province in Pakistan on a bright, sunny day in early December 2011, it is difficult to imagine the catastrophic scale of the destruction caused by the floods of 2010. Beyond the bounds of the irrigated sites, the land is now dry and dusty and the heat is immense. As I meet with Concern’s beneficiaries and partner organizations, it is all too clear however, that, although the flood waters have receded, their devastating legacy lingers.

In August and September 2010, villages across Jamshoro district were entirely submerged in water. We all recall the media images of the floods in Pakistan, but it is often difficult to fully comprehend the extent and reality of the devastating impact until you speak with those who were directly affected. Imagine losing everything you ever possessed; imagine fleeing your home with your children to save your lives; imagine watching as the mud walls and thatch roof of your home and business disintegrate in the floodwaters before your eyes.

Now try and imagine all of this as a severely disabled mother of eight. Read the rest of this entry »

By Nicki Sugrue

Jean Kwizerimana, 15, is a sixth-year student at Rugendo Primary School in Burundi who received a school uniform and supplies from Concern Worldwide.

September is the beginning of the school year in Burundi, but for many children it is just like any other month. Twelve years of civil conflict, which ended in 2005, left the country scarred. Reconstruction has been slow, significantly impacting the quality of education and the standard of schools available. Many families do not have the means to send their children to school and, even when they do attend, there is a high drop-out rate due to large class sizes and a lack of school materials and infrastructure. Read the rest of this entry »

Jamaldin aged 77, from the village of Sodhari Masjid, outside Hyderabad, in Sindh Province, Pakistan. Photo: Concern Worldwide

By Joan Bolger, Communications Officer, US

Jamaldin aged 77, and a grandfather with nine children of his own, now lives in a house with 17 of his extended family. His home is located in the small village of Sodhari Masjid, a two-hour drive from the town of Hyderabad, in Sindh Province, Pakistan. Jamaldin has two acres of land to call his own and he cultivates it with his family to support the household. They are among the lucky ones.

The majority of families in the village work as share croppers. They keep holdings of up to four acres for various different landlords that take one-third of the profit of all harvests. When asked if this is the norm, Pervez Iqbal, an agriculturalist working with Root Work Foundation (RWF), a close partner of Concern’s in Sindh says, “Not all five fingers are the same,” meaning that there are some land owners that treat their laborers well. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joan Bolger, Communications Officer, Concern Worldwide US

3-year-old Zahida with son Sanam at the Concern-run Oral Therapeutic Care center in Rahuja Village, Sindh Province. Photo: Pakistan, Concern Worldwide

13-year-old Zahida tells me she cried through the night when her father came back from an evening of gambling and told her he had found a suitor for her in marriage. “I was used as the payment. He insisted because he had no other money to give,” she explained, clutching her 12-month-old son Sanam at a Concern-run center established to treat malnourished children in Rahuja village, in Sindh, Pakistan’s southern province.

Zahida walked for one hour to get to the center so that Sanam could be treated. Here, staff record weight and arm circumferences to determine the severity of child malnutrition. The rates in Sindh province are 18.8 percent, well above the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold of 15 percent. In the worst affected areas in the province, Concern nutritionists tell me that malnutrition rates are as high as 50 percent.

Read the rest of this entry »

Women farmers cut animal fodder for domestic livestock in Basti Machi village. Photo: Pakistan, Concern Worldwide

By Joan Bolger, Communications Officer, US

Standing on the 6-foot-high embankment that encircles the village of Basti Machi in Punjab Province a three-hour drive from the city of Multan, it’s hard to imagine the destruction wrought by the Indus located not 200 meters from here. Just one year ago, super monsoon rains completely submerged large swathes of this province in six feet of water flattening crops, destroying houses and wiping out livelihoods. For the poorest, the effect was catastrophic.

Nastabebe a 25-year-old mother of one and the appointed leader of this proud village recalls the devastation in quiet, hurried tones. “We rushed, men and women together to build the walls higher around our village after we were warned the waters were coming. With our hands we packed mud to make the walls bigger and wider. We worked day and night, but we could not beat the speed of the river. Everything was lost.” Read the rest of this entry »

By Thomas Fergusson, Water Engineer for Concern in Haiti

Boy is bathed at a Concern-supported stabilization center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, just before leaving for home. Photo: Megan Christensen, Concern Worldwide

The observance of World Water Day this year (March 22), with its spotlight on urban emergencies, comes at a time when many humanitarian aid and relief organizations are contemplating—in some cases, studying in-depth—the growing trend of large emergencies shifting from rural to urban settings.

Increasingly erratic weather patterns, which some link to man-made climate change, are causing droughts and floods that are driving millions to leave the countryside for cities.

In Haiti, in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Concern Worldwide had to tackle most of these issues in highly challenging circumstances, with Port-au-Prince qualifying as a highly impoverished urban setting experiencing a major emergency albeit in extraordinary circumstances. The city was one of the most challenging environments for water and sanitation before the earthquake; the massive disaster only made the situation exponentially more complicated. Read the rest of this entry »

Parents of children attending the Duguna Deddo Primary School at work on a new library that more than 2,000 children will access to borrow books. Photo: Ethiopia, Concern Worldwide

By Joan Bolger, Communications Officer, Concern US

Though she lives just a short walk from the local school, Maza Matthews, 14, rises before dawn every morning to help take care of her younger siblings so that she can be at her school desk for 8:00 am.  Like all pupils in this remote rural village of Duguna Fango, in Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), Maza’s parents have determined with the school which shift suits their family best.

Double-shift schooling was adopted in Ethiopia as a solution to the overcrowding that ensued after 2002 when the government introduced free primary education for all. In practice it serves many purposes by reducing large class numbers, doubling the number of seats available in a day; and allowing schools to operate on lower budgets. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joan Bolger, Communications Officer, Concern US

Abebech Tito, a mother of children attending the Concern-supported Alternative Basic Education center in Wolayita, Ethiopia. Photo: Ethiopia, Concern Worldwide

There’s a saying in southwestern Ethiopia and not surprisingly—in an area ravaged by drought for three months of the year—it relates to water. Loosely translated it goes: it’s impossible to win back the water after your bucket has fallen over.

Abebech Tito, a mother of five, told me this through the school fence near her children’s classroom as she considered how her life might have been different had she not dropped out of school at Grade 8. She delivered the proverb with a smile and a shrug. “It was my own foolishness,” she added.

Her village of Fango Bijo is located in the Rift Valley in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR) region of Ethiopia, where recurrent drought and the prevalence of malaria is notoriously high. “A child died of malaria last year here,” she says, tipping her head towards the Concern-supported Alternative Basic Education (ABE) center that her children now attend. Read the rest of this entry »